The Armenian Soviet Encyclopedia (Armenian: Հայկական սովետական հանրագիտարան, Haykakan sovetakan hanragitaran; ASE) publishing house was established in 1967 as a department of the Institute of History of the Armenian Academy of Sciences under the presidency of Viktor Hambardzumyan (1908–1996), co-edited by Abel Simonyan (1922–1994) and Makich Arzumanyan (1919–1988). In 1988–1999 the editor-in-chief was Konstantin Khudaverdyan (1929–1999) and since 1999 Hovhannes Aivazyan. It produced the Soviet Armenian Encyclopedia (also rendered Armenian Soviet Encyclopedia; Armenian: Հայկական Սովետական Հանրագիտարան, Haykakan sovetakan hanragitaran, Russian: Армя́нская сове́тская энциклопе́дия, Armyanskaya sovetskaya entsiklopediyaАСЭ) from 1974–1986.

The AE publishing house also edited a children's encyclopedia, Who is it? What is it? (Armenian: Ո՞վ է, Ի՞նչ է) in 4 volumes (1984–87), the Russian-Armenian Polytechnical Dictionary (1988) and a Traveler's Encyclopedia (1990). Since Armenian independence (1991) publications include titles on topics of such current-day issues such as the Nagorno-Karabakh War, the Armenian Question and the Armenian diaspora.

The twelve volume set of the Soviet Armenian Encyclopedia and the supplementary volume, Soviet Armenia.

The first volume of the Soviet Armenian Encyclopedia (SAE) appeared in 1974, and the first edition in 13 volumes was complete by 1987. The SAE includes 38,767 articles, 15,263 images and 858 maps and over 100,000 copies have been printed.